Friday, 12 October 2007

I received a letter from Melanie, my friend from Germany. It's a beautiful letter. I was amazed by the way she's written it. Anyway, what amazed me more what the profession of her father - he is a truck driver, and inspite of that he owns a car. Which truck driver in India would be able to own, forget a car, a two-wheeler? It made me realise what exactly standard-of-living meant. The standard of living in Germany is high. And that's why Germany is a developed country, and India is developing - It forever will be. Inspite of her parents' low-profile jobs, Melanie has travelled wide. I'm impressed! I wish I could do that. But I can't, even if I want to, and that's because there is NO dignity of labour in India. If my father were a truck-driver, I would have had no respect here. People would've called me 'that truck driver's daughter', and would've sniggered. That angers me. So what if I'm a truck-drivers daughter. At least, the father's working hard to raise his family. Everybody here wants a white-collar job. People with blue-collar jobs are looked down upon. That's bad. That, in my opinion, is not right. And that is one of the reasons why children are not allowed to work and earn some extra money during their days of study. The children obviously cannot do white-collar jobs, and hence would've had to do blue-collar jobs such as baby-sitting, or lawn-mowing, or watering plants, or cleaning a library or any such stuff (that my friends abroad are doing). And since there's NO dignity of labour, we can't do such work and earn. Even if the child forced, the parents would say, "We're not such a poor condition to go work as such low-class people". *sigh* India will never improve. Children would HAVE to depend on parents until 21 years of age, or, in a few cases, 17 years of age. I'm happy I'm going to turn 21 years of age in a year. I, probably, will not have to depend on my parents so much, that is if I opt to work. But if I opt to continue further studies, I will again have to depend on them. But, most probably, I will work.